Association for India's Development
http://www.aidindia.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:Priya Ranjan - 1-888-TALK-2-AID
15 August, College Park, Maryland

 
AID Joins Greater Washington South Asian Community
To Appeal for Peace between India and Pakistan.

Fourteen organisations in the greater Washington, DC area brought the South Asian diaspora together to appeal for peace on the occasion of the Independence Days of India and Pakistan, South Asian neighbors whose governments have been in conflict for decades.  At a celebration held in the University of Maryland, College Park, men and women of all ages and from various communities, reviewed the ongoing peace efforts in the subcontinent, and stayed to share stories, poetry and songs on the theme of peace and friendship, at a celebration held in the University of Maryland, College Park.  Those assembled also signed a petition calling upon both governments to relax restrictions on travel between the countries.

Following greetings from all of the participating organisations,  video footage from this summer's peace march in which Sandeep Pandey and 75 others marched from Delhi to Multan calling for peaceful relations between Pakistan and India was screened.  Dr. A.H. Nayyar,  Professor of Physics from Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad who had participated in the march, gave the keynote address describing the people's peace process that has been unfolding both in India and Pakistan.  Security, he emphasized, must not be limited to border security but security in all respects, throughout the countries.  Ending hostility and reducing military expenditures would make possible comprehensive improvements in health, education and livelihood opportunities as well as more sensible management of natural resources, such as river basins that the two countries share.  He examined reasons for the failure of no-war pacts between India and Pakistan and sought increased freedom to travel between the nations.

Umesh Agnihotri, an Indian writer, read out his story Lakeer, about immigrant families from either side of the border settled in the US, whose children find no difference in regard to language, culture, food, and other values between the two families, and wonder why there was a dividing line between them.  Zafar Iqbal recited Yusuf Rahat's poem Shanti that beautifully described the virtues of peaceful coexistence.

The programme was arranged under the leadership of Dr Mohan Bhagat, a senior professor at the University of Maryland and actively supported by a number of Indo-Pakistan community workers that include Dr Pervez Uppal, Dr Priya Ranjan, Dr Sirish Agarwal, Dr Zafar Iqbal, Shrikumar Poddar, Kaleem Kawaja, Rohit Tripathi, Sandeep Gupta and Vineeta Gupta.

The organisations that participated in the joint celebration of Independence day included:   Association for India's Development (AID), American Federation of Muslims from India (AFMI), Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA), Asha for Education (DC), Hyderabad Association, Association of Indian Muslims of America (AIM), Aligarh Alumni Association of Washington, Non Resident Indians for Secular & Harmonious India (NRI-SAHI), Pakistan Association of Greater Washington, Policy Institute for Religion and State (PIFRAS), Sadbhav Mission, Young India, and The Organization for Universal Communal Harmony (TOUCH), and the DC Collective.